Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa are scheduled to arrive at the space
station today at 5:22 p.m. EDT (2122 GMT). The spacecraft will
dock at the Rassvet
mini research module in the station's Russian segment. Once
the spaceflyers park their Soyuz at the orbiting complex and
perform a series of leak checks on the seals, they will open the
hatches and float aboard the station.

The arrival of the new spaceflyers will round out the station's
Expedition 28 crew, which includes current station residents Ron
Garan of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and
Andrey Borisenko. [ Amazing
Space Photos by Astronaut Ron Garan ]

Garan, Samokutyaev and Borisenko arrived at the space station in
early April and will remain at the outpost until their scheduled
return to Earth in September. Borisenko is the current commander
of the station but will hand over those duties to Fossum before
his departure.

The new crewmembers will live and work at the space station for
roughly five-and-a-half months. During that time, they will be
involved in
scientific experiments and research ranging from life
sciences to Earth observation.

Two spacewalks are also planned involving the Expedition 28 crew.
The first will be performed by Garan and Fossum in July to
retrieve a broken cooling pump module that failed on the station
last summer. The spacewalkers will prepare the pump module to be
returned to Earth on the space shuttle Atlantis when it visits
the station for the final time in July.

Another spacewalk, performed by Russian cosmonauts, is also
scheduled to take place later this summer.

NASA is hoping to launch Atlantis on the final flight of the
agency's space shuttle program on July 8. The STS-135 flight will
deliver much-needed supplies to the station, and return the
failed cooling pump to Earth for engineering analysis.

Atlantis' flight will wrap up the agency's 30-year shuttle
program, making way for NASA to focus on developing spacecraft to
explore beyond low-Earth orbit.

You can follow SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on
Twitter@denisechow. Follow SPACE.com
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